Only Diamonds Last Forever

This Valentine's Day, remember only diamonds last forever and enjoy the moment :)

New parents often hear this sort of arbitrary "advice": "if you don't stop your child from doing X by X-age, they will never stop doing it!"

Or

"If you don't teach your child to do X by this age, they will never be able to do it."

The problem with this sort of crap (and it is crap) is that it scares parents and is simply not logical. Parents will second-guess their instincts and do stupid things in order to comply with the specific timeline some idiot has made up.

I once heard a doctor quote on a website: "if you don't teach a child to eat with a fork by the age of 12 months, they will never be able to do it."

One, NEVER is a really strong word. Two, what's so special about 12 months? What about 12.5 months or 13 and 2 weeks? Three, what if you live in a culture that doesn't use forks? Is that really so bad? Did you know that the MAJORITY of people in the world DO NOT USE FORKS to eat? Are they missing out?
What about me?  I didn't grow up using chop sticks but somehow managed to learn to use them as an adult. Fancy that! And you know what, your average person will not starve because they don't have the exact correct eating utensil. They will find a way to stuff their face.

What you should be asking yourself is, does the child eat food? Yes? Fantastic! Now go find a real problem to worry about.


I always love the whole, "if you don't get them out of your bed/off your breast by....."
Really? I can totally picture my gangly pimply 15 year old, with stinky feet and a creaky new man-voice, jumping into my bed after school and saying, "mama, can you cuddle me?" Sure. Hell just froze over. It's just not going to happen even if I wanted it to happen (and believe me, I don't!).

Look man, enjoy your kids when they are small. They are only small once! Let them develop how they do, even if sometimes it seems a little slow. They will only need you this way once and then they grow up and need different things. I savor those feet kicking into my kidneys and the kisses on my face in the morning because nothing lasts forever.

Baby them while they're babies. That's our job.

Mama On A Motherly Instinct Mission

The Little Man had an Occupational Therapy (OT) evaluation yesterday. We had seen one before at the Children's Hospital in the feeding clinic, but I didn't like the way they work (wanting me to bride him to eat good foods by using things like chocolate and ice cream). Not only that, but the psychologist there isn't great with autism and they don't really "believe" in sensory issues - it's just not their thing. So rather than butt heads, we thanked them for their time and stopped going.

Fast forward to us applying for the QC disability allowance and needing a real written evaluation done. I've already learnt that if you want something done around here quickly, you need to go private. Luckily, we have private insurance to cover most of this. The QC government gave me a month to supply them with evals in OT and speech therapy - I luckily managed to get that extended by calling, but all this stuff needs to be done. So I went to the semi-private clinic he normally goes to and got a new OT there. She actually works at the Children's (so again, not a big believer in sensory integration issues) but she did a total developmental assessment on him.

He needs some fine motor skills tweaking, but is mostly age-appropriate (3 years) which is great news. Because of that, we probably won't qualify for the disability allowance, but I don't care at this point. What was really helpful was having her confirm my Motherly Instincts (so useful when you listen to them!) about him really needing to focus on language and social skills.

It's just so annoying out there, with some many businesses trying to make money off of parent's fears and uncertainty - the whole, "if you don't do something right now and do it really intensively and spend eight hundred million dollars on therapy, well....."

No, I know my kid. I know him better than anyone. Crazy intensive ABA therapy would stress him out more than do good. He has problems speaking, maybe apraxia, maybe dysarthria, maybe both. It doesn't matter what, but that's what needs to be worked on. He's a good kid, a bright kid, a quirky kid, but one who is capable of learning and wants to learn.

So really, the OT just reaffirmed my instincts and strengthen my resolve to find a speech therapist who will go into his daycare maybe once or twice a week and work with him. I'm a mama on a mission, a clear mission, to continue to follow my instincts.